Accurate Accurins™ Treating Cancer

Recalling a project we did for Dr. Kaunas last year, we all, practically, were researching a magical nanoparticle that cured specific sites within the body, using Fick's equations, and somehow missed healthy tissue, or were below a certain threshold of toxicity. Dr. Kaunas was probably laughing at how naive these assumptions were, while he was docking points from perfectly good formulas (at least for me). 


Well, looks like the joke is on him, because there is a developing therapy, for cancer nonetheless, that can selectively target diseased cells and avoid healthy tissues to treat cancer patients. This miracle drug is a nanopartical called Accurins™, developed by the company BIND Biosciences. This treatment specifically targets diseased tissues, while avoiding disease tissues, resulting in "...higher drug concentrations at the site of action with minimal off-target exposure, leading to markedly better efficacy and safety." 


Developed by MIT professor Robert Langer, this therapy has been years in the making, starting with research into nanoparticles during the early 1990's. In 2006, Langer and his team had shown the therapy worked on mice in a laboratory. Langer and co. launched their company a year later. 


So how does this treatment work? Well, liposomes, with extra ninja-like stealth equipment for the body. The ninja equipment includes targeting ligands on the surface of the nanoparticles, a 'stealth and protective' layer, controlled release polymers, and a therapeutic load. 

The website of the company doesn't disclose too much information about this technology, with good reason, but I think we can all be excited about a possible development of a miracle nanoparticle that will be capable of greatly increasing the chance of survival of cancer. Hooray for science!


Sources:
http://moneymorning.com/2012/04/26/this-biotech-startup-just-scored-a-key-cancer-breakthrough/


http://www.bindbio.com/index.jsp